Ann Saucer will stand before the Texas Supreme Court Wednesday morning to argue the largest and possibly most important civil litigation dispute the state’s highest court has handled this decade.
The Dallas appellate law expert represents 15,000 individuals and small business owners who are asking the Texas justices to allow their Winter Storm Uri-related claims for wrongful death, personal injury and property damage against the largest electric transmission and distribution utilities in Texas to move forward to trial. Combined, the plaintiffs seek billions of dollars in damages from the energy companies.
Lawyers for the TDUs, which include Oncor Electric Delivery and CenterPoint Energy, are asking the state Supreme Court to rule that the lawsuits are without merit, that Mother Nature was responsible for the injuries caused by the catastrophic four days of unprecedented winter weather in February 2021 that blasted Texas with subzero and single-digit temperatures and freezing precipitation and that the cases should be dismissed without going to trial.
Saucer is planning to convince the justices during oral arguments on Wednesday that the cases against the utilities should be sent back to Harris County District Judge Sylvia Matthews to be set for trial.
“It is an honor to speak on behalf of hundreds of people who are no longer with us and to explain why there should be ramifications for the wrongdoings of others,” Saucer, a partner at the Nachawati Law Group, told The Texas Lawbook in an interview. “It is very disturbing that we are talking about shutting down all these incredibly important cases without a single deposition being taken and a single piece of paper being produced in discovery.”
“Our clients want and deserve one thing — their day in court,” she said. “This case is about protecting our clients’ constitutional rights to trial by jury.”
More than 115 lawyers from across Texas filed hundreds of lawsuits in more than two dozen counties in the days and months following Winter Storm Uri, alleging that gross negligence and willful misconduct by electric companies were responsible for their clients’ injuries.
Those 115 attorneys turned to Saucer to lead their pretrial legal efforts.
“Ann is exceedingly bright; her brilliance is only eclipsed by her willingness to do the hard work needed by our Winter Storm Uri clients,” said prominent lawyer Mikal Watts, who represents scores of individuals and business owners in the litigation. “Thousands of people are counting on us, and I can think of no other lawyer I’d rather have arguing on their behalf before the Supreme Court of Texas.”
Saucer has argued dozens of high-profile cases in appellate courts across the country on subjects ranging from Hurricane Katrina and asbestos to opioids and improper fees charged to customers by bank credit cards.
“Ann is a stalwart on the complex legal issues involving the Texas opioid litigation,” said Dallas lawyer Jeffrey Simon. “She does the heavy lifting and she is a great advocate. The plaintiffs are in good hands with Ann.”
Former Dallas Court of Appeals Judge Ken Molberg said Saucer is “one of the top tier” appellate lawyers in the U.S.
“Ann focuses on the issues that she knows are important to the judges hearing the case,” Judge Molberg said. “Her skill level is exceptional.”
Saucer grew up in New Orleans. Her father was a civil engineer and her mother had a degree in anthropology.
She saw her first Shakespearean play, The Taming of the Shrew, when she was 11 and was immediately hooked.
“My father and I were close and he loved Shakespeare,” she said. “I could never aspire to match Shakespeare’s genius for understanding the human condition or his creativity in turning a phrase.”
While clerking for former chief judge Henry Politz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Saucer befriended the court’s librarian in Shreveport, Marian Drey, and the duo traveled the globe to “enjoy Shakespeare.”
“Having her as my friend and those travel experiences have definitely made me smarter and a better, more thoughtful person,” she said.
Saucer graduated from the University of New Orleans in 1985 with a degree in chemistry and then worked in southern Louisiana as a laboratory chemist, testing groundwater for toxic waste.
The experience of uncovering toxic chemicals wrongfully emitted from nearby companies led Saucer to go to Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1991.
‘To thine own self be true’
After working two years at a corporate defense law firm in Louisiana, she moved to Dallas and switched her practice from the defense to the plaintiff’s side.
“I moved to focus on appellate work and then was eager to represent individuals and fight systemic injustice,” she said.
After stints practicing at Dallas-based Baron & Budd, a national leader in toxic tort litigation, and at her own firm, Saucer joined Nachawati in 2019.
“Ann is the best legal writer I’ve ever worked with and she has been an amazing mentor to me,” said Dallas lawyer Amy Carter.
Winter Storm Uri: Four Years Later, Zero Jury Trials for 30,000 Victims of Storm
Carter points out that Saucer has been a member of the Dallas Municipal Library Board for 16 years, is a fan of the musician Jelly Roll and rides her bicycle to work most days.
Saucer became involved in the Winter Storm Uri litigation almost at the start when the Texas Supreme Court consolidated all the lawsuits against the energy companies in one court and named former Harris County Judge Sylvia Matthews as the trial judge to handle the multidistrict litigation.
Judge Matthews sided with Saucer and the plaintiff’s lawyers in allowing the charges of gross negligence and intentional nuisance to proceed to trial. Lawyers for the energy companies filed a mandamus petition with the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston, but the appellate justices sided with Saucer and the plaintiffs.
On Wednesday, the eyes and ears of seven Texas Supreme Court justices will focus on Saucer.
“This oral argument is very important to me because we are just so right about the law in this case,” she said. “It is shocking to hear the companies claim that they have no duty to their clients in this case. This is not rocket science. Severe weather like this happened all across the country — some places much worse — but nowhere else were there extreme failures on the part of the energy companies like here in Texas. Nowhere else suffered the loss of life like here.”
“The people of Texas and these victims deserve to have these cases move forward,” Saucer said.